New Jersey, 1998

Back in 1998, John and I went to visit a couple of our best friends
- Jean and Jill. They live in New Jersey, and we usually refer to them affectionately
as "Jean and Jill from Jersey". The alliteration is just irresistable!

The point of the visit was to visit Six Flags Great America in
New Jersey. They were "introducing" a roller-coaster which had actually
been open for a year already - "Batman and Robin - The Chiller" -
it had twin parallel tracks, so it seemed to the management that an ideal promotion
would be a Twins Days at Six Flags, to promote their Twin-Track roller coaster.

The coaster was rough, BRUTAL even, but John and I jumped at the
opportunity to:

Spend a few days with our friends

Take a cool trip

Spend a day at Six Flags for free. A free day at the park, with free lunch
and free parking! All we had to do was get our butts from Minnesota to New
Jersey. Wow, did we scan the budget-basement-bargain bins for the inexpensive
travel opportunities! Ultimately, we drove from the Twin Cities, MN to Chicago,
then flew to Newark.

While visiting, we stayed at Jean's place and at one point we
dragged them from idyllic Lake Hopatcong into the rucus of New York City (John
was dying to show it to me -- Jean and Jill were dying to stay away but gamely
strung along to show us how the hell to get there!).

Here are some pictures from our little visit:

First off, here is the view from Jill's front yard.On
the morning we drove over from Jean's house to pick up Jill. It was
a cool, foggy, May morning, and we were tired and cold. Upon arrival
at Jill's place, there was no action from her place. John and Jean went
in to rouse her, and for some reason I hung out at the car waiting.
After a long time went by, I decided to entertain myself with taking
pictures. Looking off her dock, I got a couple of nice photos - one
which I scanned, and one which I can't find right now. Here's one of
'em, anyways.

Here is the object of our trip. Two different tracks
- one red, one blue. The blue track shoots out from the domed building
in the middle, goes straight up, straight down, and through a corkscrew
before ending up 150 feet or so up in the air at the right-hand edge
of the screen. The RED track does something similar, but rougher.

Here's a closeup of the left-hand end of the photo
above. The red track clearly does some funky stuff as it comes out of
the station. The cars in the photo are headed from right to left, as
they finish the loop and will soon start shooting up the hill to the
right. They're moving at about 70mph right now, and the passengers are
not too comfortable (the biggest failing of the ride).

This is a closeup of the so-called "Top Hat"
move which the blue track (called "Batman") takes after exiting
the station. You hit a basically vertical track, shoot straight up and
over the top, then straight down before heading up the hills to the
right. This is MUCH more comfortable and cool than the red ("Robin")
track. Click on the photo for a closer view!

The cars in this photo are in about the same position
as the ones two photos above. You can see the fins sticking out from
the side of the car - these are used for the electro-magnetic launch
and braking. Do these passengers look comfortable? It's a way-cool ride,
but I couldn't recommend it for more than a couple rides a day. Call
me a wimp, I don't care!

For the day in the park, Jean found the coolest shirts
in the world. Jean, Jill, John and I wore 'em. On the front, they stated
simply: "Think". That's me on the right, John on the left.

On the back of the shirts, they say "Think Again".
So, we'd be walking through Six Flags, and some yokel would call out:
"Think? Now what should I do?" and all we'd have to do was
turn around and show 'em our backs. Cute, eh?

So, after a day in the park, we were exhausted. We
took a night to recoup our strength before John and I DRAGGED the two
of them out to the train station to make our way to NYC. Naturally,
for all their disdain of the city, neither of them had ever made a trip
to the Empire State Building. So here was their excuse. We paid their
way up and that helped. Here are the four of us enjoying a nice sunny
May day on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Geez Louise,
the lighting is bad! I THINK this is me, Jill, Jean, and John. I might
have Jean and Jill mixed up in this one -- they'll kill me!

Later, as we're heading up the elevator to the TOP floor
of the ESB, we start making small-talk: "Gee, I wonder what's on
all of these floors BETWEEN the top and the observation deck?". The
elevator operator responds, while hitting the control lever: "You
wanna see?". There were only six of us in the elevator: John, Jean,
Jill, Me, the operator, and a tourist who clearly wished we hadn't asked
the question. He stopped the rig in mid-floor and opened the door. There
was a metal grid walkway, which you could see through for many floors
up and down, and some wire-reinforced glass on the outside walls, with
colored lights installed nearby. We walked around for a while, looking
around and thinking: "Here's someplace that not every tourist gets
to see!". After a few minutes (the other guy inn the elevator never
even got out) we took a picture to document our visit. I hope the elevator
guy doesn't get in trouble!